Holy Communion My Way

No priest. No wafer. Just 9 women and the truth. 

Communion and sacraments were exclusive to the Catholic church. At least that’s what I thought as a kid going to mass every Sunday. Things you must do if you want eternal salvation – whatever the hell that is.

My first communion I was seven years old dressed as a bride of sorts. White dress, white gloves, white lace mantilla. Praying hands draped with plastic rosary beads (also white) as I walked down the aisle to take my seat in a huge stone cathedral to do something I didn’t understand. Something that would never actually mean anything to me. Communion was what I had to do to belong in my family. Doesn’t everyone?

Today though the words communion and sacrament have a deeper richer meaning that have nothing to do with religion. No one owns those words, and I have reclaimed them for myself. Reclaimed in a way that holds profound meaning for me and still we gather around the bread of life.

I now find myself in holy communion and the sacrament of sisterhood. 

Last night, nine women gathered around the Gratitude Table which happens to be my kitchen table. After everyone left, I returned to the scene in my mind. My body was still vibrating from the experience, too much to attempt to go to bed.

Some of the women knew each other, some were meeting for the first time. The sacrament of sisterhood right here in my own space. Laughter. Wisdom. Curiosity. Witness. Invitation. Joy. My feet are on the floor and I feel like I’m floating.

Holy communion has begun. I assign tasks from chopping tomatoes to setting the table. Chairs are brought in from the back deck. Glasses fill. Conversations ensue. We fill our plates and head to the table. Somewhere between dinner and dessert there is a question posed to these women. A question always centered on gratitude.

Often it is about gratitude or appreciation for someone or something in our lives. However, this month, I decided to turn the question around and ask each woman to share something about herself she is grateful for.

One woman noted that she felt a pull in her gut at that question. To her, this indicated how little we do this. How little we actually let ourselves stand for something we love about who we are. What these women share is always confidential, private, it stays in the group, naturally. The way things unfold is what’s important here and now.

It took time for each woman to share. One woman would share and then there would be a pause, moments of silence and I love that. It allows space for the next woman to step forward. A breath in which to listen to what feels alive in her in that moment. To speak when she is ready. Often one woman’s story sparks another in this way.

Nonetheless, each woman with her own story sharing openly and vulnerably. I’ve been reading If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie – she would call this the heroine’s journey. Each woman’s unique path to this midlife space. Each woman coming into her own with curiosity, courage, and a reverence for life.

Holy communion and the sacrament of sisterhood is all about breaking bread and breaking the silence the world has expected of us since…forever. Midlife is a revolution and it’s happening here and now.

This table is becoming a ritual. A sacred rite, and perhaps we’ll call it that at some point. Perhaps before our next gratitude sharing, I’ll invite everyone to breathe with me first as we reclaim our sovereignty, the way I have reclaimed holy communion with far greater significance than anything I learned as a child.

Then, it was what we did. What I had to do to satisfy my parents’ expectations. I had no choice and it had no real meaning then. The communion wafer did nothing to satisfy my hunger, physical or spiritual. In fact, we weren’t allowed to eat before mass, so that wafer always exacerbated the morning hunger in my belly.

Holy communion is to be nourished in all ways – physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual – because all of these are the same thing. All of those things are what we are. They cannot be separated.

Holy communion as a kid was some abstract concept that the spirit was in that wafer, but that spirit is each and every one of us. Each woman gathered at this table is human and divine, an incarnation of consciousness, and together we celebrate that.

If you’re waiting for the right moment to do something, there isn’t one. We don’t have to wait for someone else to create space for communion and sacrament. They are not the sole property of religion. They are ours to create in whatever way moves us. In whatever feels like joy, what feels most alive in us.

We are not limited by the expectations of others, by the rules of religion, or by the way the world looks unless we choose to accept those limits.

At the gratitude table there are no limits. There is an open door. There is a sacred space for women to gather and share a meal. A place to speak openly and unapologetically without the fear that someone will object or question them. Without the worry that someone will ask them to explain themselves or justify their choices.

I have always been someone who sees possibility. That doesn’t mean I’ve always acted on it – I spent a lot of years taking the safe road. Midlife changed that. Divorce changed that. Everything I have experienced from childhood through my life readied me for this reclamation.

I imagine gratitude tables everywhere. Holy communion and the sacrament of sisterhood rising up. In small apartments. In large homes. Outside in nature. Spaces where women are gathering in the art of self-approval. Reclaiming their own brilliance and celebrating that of each woman gathered.

Tables opening everywhere to more and more women to stand in their truth. To use their voice. To share what’s on their heart. In doing so, we loosen our grip on what we have been resisting and start creating the world we want to live in.

We are no longer wishing for things to be different. We are being different. And that is who we become.

With love,